Abstract
Software-as-a-service applications are experiencing immense growth as their comparatively low cost makes them an important alternative to traditional software. Following the initial adoption phase, vendors are now concerned with the continued usage of their software. To analyze the influence of different measures to improve continued usage over time, a longitudinal study approach using data from a SaaS vendor was implemented. Employing a linear mixed model, the study finds several measures to have a positive effect on a software’s usage penetration. In addition to these activation measures performed by the SaaS vendor, software as well as client characteristics were also examined, but did not display significant estimates. The findings emphasize the need for proactive activation initiatives to raise usage penetration. More generally, the study contributes novel insights into the scarcely researched field of influencing factors on SaaS usage continuance.
Highlights
With the continuing trend toward IT industrialization, public cloud services constitute an evolution of business by allowing for a new opportunity to shape the relationship between IT service customers and vendors (Van der Meulen and Pettey 2008)
To that end, fixed factors were successively removed from the final linear mixed model
Only the activation measure variables, namely banner, newsletter, and training, display a highly significant effect on usage penetration, whereas the variable age can only be reported significant at a 10% α-level
Summary
With the continuing trend toward IT industrialization, public cloud services constitute an evolution of business by allowing for a new opportunity to shape the relationship between IT service customers and vendors (Van der Meulen and Pettey 2008). According to Gartner (2016), these cloud services are subject to a 26.4 % growth in 2017, resulting in a total market size of $ 89.8 billion worldwide. SaaS solutions make up the biggest amount among the three service categories with a forecasted market size of $ 46.3 billion for 2017. For software-as-a-service applications, customers do not pay to own the software but instead only pay to access and use it. The SaaS provider hosts and operates the application (Cisco 2009). This business model offers various advantages to its customers, such as reduced IT dependence and costs and more flexibility as a company is able to scale the SaaS solution quickly as business conditions change (Waters 2005).
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